Image credit: User Black and White, Wikimedia Commons

The following information on recent archival processing work at Manuscripts and Archives (MSSA) was written by Alison Clemens, Head of Processing.

As I mentioned in my most recent processing post, I usually share quarterly updates about collections and additions to collections for which MSSA has recently acquired and completed processing. Since the Sterling Memorial Library (SML) building was closed from mid-March until this fall, our processing staff shifted their attention to processing born-digital material at MSSA. Processing staff have recently begun entering the building on a part time basis, so we’ll soon be balancing our born-digital processing work with processing materials stored in the SML building.

As a reminder, born-digital material is material that was created in a computer environment. Since March, MSSA processing staff have been consulting the recently-created Yale University Born Digital Archival Description Guidelines in order to describe our born-digital materials in a standardized and consistent manner to facilitate user access.

Since my last post in July, MSSA staff have begun or completed description and processing for born-digital materials from the Edward Grant Oral History Project Records, the William Silver Papers, and several other collections. For my next quarterly update, I expect and look forward to sharing more news about both our physical and digital processing work.

For more information about Yale’s work with born-digital material, see the Saving Digital Stuff blog.